Somewhere Between the Truth and the Transcript

I didn’t go to Peru looking to become anything.

If I’m being honest, I probably went thinking I already had things pretty well figured out.

I’m a board-certified marital and family law attorney. I’ve built a career on structure—facts, evidence, arguments, outcomes. You put a problem in front of me, I can usually break it down and put it back together in a way that makes sense.

That’s the job.

And for a long time, that identity worked. It still does.

But somewhere underneath all of that—under the motions, the hearings, the very serious business of people’s lives falling apart—there’s always been this other thing I couldn’t quite explain.

Not mystical. Not spiritual. Just… a pattern.

I’ve never been great at just accepting the version of reality someone hands me.

Not clients. Not opposing counsel. Not even myself.

There’s always a moment where I look at the story being told and think, that’s not really what’s going on here.

And sometimes I say it.

Not because it’s strategic. Sometimes it’s actually terrible strategy.

But because once I see it, I can’t not see it. And once I say it, things move. The room shifts. The energy changes. People get uncomfortable—and then, occasionally, things get more honest.

I didn’t have a name for that.

Then I ended up in Peru, out near the Andes Mountains, doing something that, if you had told law-school me about it, I probably would’ve cross-examined you.

It wasn’t dramatic. No lightning bolt. No moment where everything suddenly made sense.

It was quieter than that.

More like pieces clicking into place that had been sitting there for a long time.

At some point, someone told me I was a “heyoka.”

Which, for those of us who didn’t grow up in that tradition, basically means a kind of healer who does things backward. Not the comforting kind. The kind that disrupts. Reflects. Says the thing that doesn’t quite fit—and that’s the point.

My first reaction was probably the correct one:

That sounds… unlikely.

I’m a divorce attorney. I deal with statutes, not spirits.

But the more I sat with it, the more annoying it became… because it kind of tracked.

Because what do I actually do?

People come into my office at one of the worst points in their lives, absolutely convinced of their version of what’s happening. And they’re not wrong, exactly, but they’re not seeing the whole picture either.

And my job isn’t just to advocate.

It’s to figure out what’s real enough to actually hold up.

Sometimes it means telling them something they don’t want to hear.

Sometimes that means agreeing with them.

And sometimes it means walking into a courtroom and saying something that makes everyone a little uncomfortable, because it cuts closer to the truth than the arguments we’ve all agreed to pretend are the point.

That’s not traditional lawyering.

At least, not entirely.

Looking back, it’s been there the whole time.

As a kid, trying to make sense of things that didn’t make sense.

As a teenager, dealing with loss in a way that never really resolved, just… evolved.

As an adult, building a career inside a system I respect, but also constantly test.

Not to break it.

Just to see where it breaks on its own.

Peru didn’t change me.

It just took away some of the excuses.

Now when I walk into court, nothing looks different. Same suit. Same cases. Same arguments.

But I’m a little more aware of what’s actually happening.

It’s not just a legal proceeding.

It’s a room full of people holding onto stories that are starting to crack.

And somewhere in there, my role—whether I like the label or not—is to apply just enough pressure to that story that something more honest can come through.

Not perfectly.

Not cleanly.

But better than where it started.

So no, I don’t go around calling myself a heyoka.

That would be a tough sell in Palm Beach County.

But…

if the job is to walk into chaos, question the narrative, and shift things just enough that people end up somewhere closer to the truth…

then yeah.

I can see it.

And honestly, the best part of it is…

no one ever suspects the divorce attorney.